The Back of the Moon
by Lanie Kay-Aleese
Summary: Marauder's Era. The night after the full moon, Remus breaks. This is a good thing.


**I disclaim nothing!** This one-shot came from one of those times when I really just couldn't help it! I keep feeling like, "Remus!". And then this happens.And um, basically SBRL is love, and that's why I had to write it. It could fit in with the universe of _It Doesn't Count_ but it could go either way. This one should be set in MWPP, fifth year, I believe.

** The Back of the Moon**  
by Lanie Kay-Aleese

Last night, he had the urge to kill, and he didn't, or he couldn't.

It isn't surprising as much as it was exhausting. Now, in the cracks of the morning, he is so tired that he cannot think, cannot think, cannot think. It hurts. His head. He wonders if he has a fever. It feels too warm to his hands. But soothing. Soothing to touch, before he breaks out of his skin.

His body does not fit inside of his skin right now and there is no reason, he thinks, no reason for his mind to stay there either, in this place not on earth or under the stars, but hiding somewhere on the back of the moon.

So he tries to float. He tries to press his thumbs into his calves and into his thighs and into his arms and he wants to move his neck, but the muscles there are so sore that he is sure that it will crack him, and he will shatter into pieces and never find himself again.

He does not hear a voice. There is only the pounding in his skull that he wishes was his heartbeat, a slower heartbeat than the one that is still there, fast enough to kill him. Because it - not him, but it - the other him - wanted something to die tonight, and was left hungry. And it still threatens to rip itself out of him. Rip himself apart.

His eyes open; the world is still flashing in the other's colors, a palette of white and black and grey. As long as there is no color, he is safe. He is not safe. He is breaking but it is better than seeing another's blood, because that is the only other color that he can see right now, and red is too pure and too rich for his eyes to stand.

The room is so sharp that he wonders. Perhaps it is the world that split apart around him and he will never see color again. He whines and tries to ignore that his voice cracks around it. It feels too new.

Immediately, a shadow falls across him and the blur of motion forces him to shut his eyes. The sound of padded feet comes through, echoing, like words.

He thinks that they may be real words.

And he reaches out to them.

It is all black now as he opens his eyes, and there is someone else touching his arms, pressing into them, releasing them.

Releasing him.

Breaking him.

"Thank you," he rasps, and his eyes fall shut to a trembling touch.

He sees Black. It is not too rich and too pure for him and it is still so freeing.

"God, Remus. I had no idea it was like this. No idea. No idea."

"I'm," he breathes, he breathes as if he were floating on it, "I'm usually. Usually. Too passed out. So I -- don't feel it."

A swear in the darkness. And warm breath puffs against his arm as the presence to his side is adjusting and beside him.

"Next time - Next time I'll bring James. And Peter. They've been practicing, too, but we weren't sure if - weren't sure if it was safe-"

He has never heard a human voice and not wanted to spill it. He has never touched a human after this. Never his mother, never his father, never a medi-witch. Never been awake. Never been anything but afraid. But floating, waiting to break.

The touch is running over him. So lightly it is barely there but it burns and heals and he wants it to press against him and heal him. He thinks. He thinks that it is because the Healer has always come by now, before he wakes. Maybe that wasn't. Maybe that wasn't _good enough_. Maybe he just needed to be _touched_.

It feels so good. And it all comes in an instant -- There is touch, and Remus breaks from his skin, and there is everywhere, color, shining color, so bright and overwhelming and he is in love, he is in love, he is in love.

He cries. He is reaching out and the touch answers him, the pads of calluses wiping away tears that he couldn't even feel. He is free from that body now and he had never realized how badly he'd wanted to be broken in his life.

He doesn't realize that he is speaking, repeating _'Thank you, thank you, **thank you**'_ until he chokes on his own saliva and doesn't care if he drowns, because for once in his life he isn't drowning inside of himself.

And how can anyone but Remus understand? His companion, his savior, is running his hands through his hair and getting his fingers stuck on the knots at the ends, then touching him, then repeating the action, and shaking his head, while words are pouring from him, too, an outward flood:

"It's okay. I mean, it's not okay, but. God. I didn't know. You were so alone. You never told us anything. How could you deal with this? How can anyone, how can you be so, so strong? How are you still - I don't - It was so _terrible_ Remus, I wanted to do anything, anything, but stand there. And I don't even know what to do now. I can't just sit here. God. Remus, what am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do!"

Realizing that they are both shaking somehow helps enough, enough to just sob in reply, using his breath and his voice to regain himself and his pieces on the dusty old bed where they lay.

"It's enough," he says, choking back the freedom as much as the physical pain that is still swelling all around him.

The tears in his eyes have accumulated, and they throw his world into a swirl of colors and a bizarre bubble of shape, but he is too tired to even blink it away.

There are colors all around him, but this is the back of the moon: all Remus wants to see is Black. And that's all there is to see.

It's enough. 


End file.
